


Brevity is the Soul of Wit

by Icarus5800



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bakery AU, Collected on AO3 for my personal reference only, Cowboy AU, Dinosaur AU, Gen, Javert Selfcest, M/M, Other, Really really weird AUs, Space AU, Steampunk AU, Telepath AU, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, hairporn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-11 21:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icarus5800/pseuds/Icarus5800
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bunch of three-sentence ficlets.  The only thing I seem capable of writing at the moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bakery AU - Javert/Valjean

The bread tasted of an indefinable, addicting warmth; even when cold from being neglected in favour of duty for far too many hours, it nevertheless stirred a faint feeling of satisfaction in him when he at last found time to break the hardened crust between eager teeth. The baker swore to the heavens on high that he had never mixed any questionable ingredients together with his dough; Javert believed him.

Many years later, he realized that the bread tasted of home.


	2. Space AU - Javert/Valjean

Former Imperial Captain Javert stepped out from the doorway of his small shuttlecraft in which he had made a desperate escape onto the gleaming landing platform of the Deliverance, struggling to walk erect under the crushing weight of past mistakes, every step a breaking of old bonds and obligations which had once been his entire world; he walked into the hands of salvation; his eyes held neither rancour nor regret.

Jean Valjean gazed at the haggard, weary face of the man before him, and found beneath the pain of being betrayed by one’s lifelong master a burgeoning resolve and a delicate, newborn hope. He reached out with his right hand to clasp the arm of his former foe, covering the spot where the Imperial Insignia had been ripped away in a moment of frightful epiphany, leaving a great gaping hole behind on the uniform sleeve, and said with a firm, tremulous voice,

“Welcome aboard, Javert.”


	3. Dinosaur AU - Javert/Valjean

Javert knew that something was amiss the moment he returned to his half burnt-out campfire to find the remainder of his roasted wild boar dinner gone and large, clumsy paw prints disturbing the fresh spring grass, which he naturally took advantage of to track the beastly thief down. He found him cutting up the boar with his sharp claws to distribute between seven sickly little dinosaurs, a female dinosaur with whom the thief shared a strong resemblance waiting patiently at the side; as if sensing his presence, the thief turned, and Javert was fixed in place by great, luminous eyes.

It was love at first sight for them both.


	4. Telepath AU - Javert/Valjean

They were a wretched race, feared and persecuted for their Gift—the unsettling ability to communicate without word or gesture, or indeed any outward sign at all—which the government claimed was a grave threat to the peace and health of society. Javert had always taken the greatest care to suppress the restless tendrils of his consciousness, unable to allow himself to form such necessary yet forbidden connections with his fellows, for he treasured the law above his own sanity.

It was not until one starless night, standing atop a parapet in what he believed to be the last moments of his life, that he allowed his guard to slip; another mind found his—a mind that had been seeking his through all these years, as he had sought the other’s body—and a single, desperate word echoed in his soul, making the small step forward to oblivion seem an impossible distance:

“No—!”


	5. Cowboy AU - Valjean/Fauchelevent

To journey across the sea, to leave his homeland behind, to wither and die and be interred in foreign soil—these were thoughts abhorrent to old Fauchelevent’s mind, for though he was but a simple peasant, he clung to France with an almost unconscious tenacity that seemed to be congenital in all the children of this blessed nation. But when Father Madeleine made a gentle request for his company, he easily consented, for it was Father Madeleine that asked, and to deny a saint was an even more unthinkable thing than to cast his ancient bones into the pits of change and uncertainty.

Thus he found himself on a cattle ranch in Québec, resting atop the tender, accommodating grass with his brother by his side, the two men leaning against each other—they were neither of them young any longer—as they watched little Cosette run after butterflies in the fields; when the sun began its descent behind the distant hills, Father Madeleine turned to smile at him, and he knew himself to be in paradise.


	6. Steampunk AU - Enjolras/Grantaire

Enjolras stood with his left foot upon a small platform that suspiciously resembled a rusting car engine, his right fist in the air, rhapsodizing eloquently on the iniquity and injustice of the Boer War, which occurrence was, according to him, comparable to a cancerous tumor in the lifeblood of the great British Empire. His opinion was not a wholly unpopular one, and a crowd had gathered around the vibrant youth, who feared no censure for he chided because he loved, his criticism intended as a balm or, more fittingly, a sharp scalpel to cut away the festering sores that plagued his adored nation.

Grantaire gazed at him from afar, knowing that he would just as soon fight in the army of oppression as condemn it upon this man’s say so, knowing that he was unworthy of even a passing regard from his idol, knowing that he had no chance, no chance at all; and yet his heart dared to long, and he dared—he dared—to hope.


	7. Javert Selfcest

Javert caresses the fluffy whiskers (that bore a strange resemblance to squirrels’ tails) of the man bound naked and stretched out before him, finding them far softer to the touch than appearance would suggest, and really rather dashing—though of course inferior to his own. The glint of challenge he sees in the impostor’s eyes is infuriating, the insubordinate smirk madly arousing; he clenches his hand in the silvering hair, expecting the pained grimace, but not the accompanying rush of pleasure it provokes deep within him. Pushing back a strand of hair that had escaped his ponytail in the struggle from which he emerged victor, Javert reaches for his riding crop; no one usurps the place of Inspector Javert without consequences.


	8. Hairporn - Javert/Valjean

Madeleine trailed his left hand through Javert’s long, dark hair, letting the strands glide over his fingers like water, cool and smooth, tinted a golden shade in the light of the candles. He bent down, the better to examine, his forehead almost resting against Javert’s crown, inhaling the sharp aroma of soap mingled with something elusive and indistinct, the stubbornly lingering scent of the sea not yet washed away by the flow of inland life, perhaps, or simply the sweat of nerves that even Javert’s iron will could not quiet, for Madeleine could see the slightest trembling of the fists resting upon the inspector’s thighs.

“Be at ease,” he whispered against Javert’s ear, then, twirling a lock of hair around his forefinger, he found the sharpened shears with his right hand and made the first cut.


End file.
